What’s a book? What a book!
A slow read for a book of this length, but in a good way.
Frequent pauses for thought as a word, sentence, passage prompted the most unexpected and random memories to rise to the surface.
Growing up somewhere in the south west, sketches from the classroom and life as a student flow freely into the fantastical worlds of Tarquin Superbus and the sewing sister in a continuous stream of consciousness hinting that one thing can lead to another, can’t it. Yes, it can.
Disturbing, exhilarating and evocative. Powerful, imaginative and amusing.
I, we, and she. Reading, writing and possessing.
This is a masterful and cleverly written book that will stay with me for a long time.
“So, I expect you’ve already read Checkout 19, eh?” asked a friend. No, but I have now and chances are I will again.
Check it out! ( )

Did not enjoy. ( )

Pushes you right off your comfy chair. ( )

Pushes you right off your comfy chair. ( )

This is a stream-of-consciousness novel about reading and writing. The narrator talks about how she read books as a kid, lists the books she had and had not read at a certain age, describes some pivotal moments in her life, and describes in great detail a novel that she wrote (and, like Borges's map, in describing the novel, she essentially writes it again). The thread that ties all of this together is the extent to which books - both those she reads and those she writes - do and do not relate to real life. In particular, she focuses on the scene in A Room With A View where Lucy witnesses the murder of the Italian man in the piazza. As the narrator travels to Venice, and experiences her own upheavals in life, she comes back to that scene and how her own experience was similar or different. Since the book is stream-of-consciousness, it seems to ramble very arbitrarily, but there is a stunning moment towards the end of the book when the whole thing comes into very sharp focus. This is not an easy book to read, but Bennett is brilliant and the payoff is worth it. ( )